Healthy Food: Fresh pesticides

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, EDITORIAL BOARD
Published January 31, 2008

The dangers of pesticides on what should be our healthiest foods ought to spur or reinforce caution on the part of the public. That's largely because regulators have done a poor job of studying and controlling pesticides. The philosophy of too much of government amounts to: What the public doesn't know can't scare them out of buying products from the folks using their money to sway our regulatory decisions. As the Seattle P-I's Andrew Schneider reported Wednesday, an important, yearlong study found that Mercer Island kids eating conventionally grown fruit, vegetables and juices quickly showed traces of organophosphates, powerful chemicals that can affect the nervous system, in their urine and saliva. As soon as the kids switched to organic products, the organophosphates disappeared. Consumers can learn what fresh foods have more and less pesticides from the Environmental Working Group and other sources. Organic products aren't a magical fix, but buying from organic and reputable local growers increasingly looks like a good way to reduce exposure. At every level, pesticides deserve more attention. In one encouraging development, the state has a rural air-monitoring pilot project. One object is to measure exposure for the public, including children, from the continued use of, you guessed it, organophosphates in agriculture here. © 1998-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer